Process of snipping beans



15.1. VAUDHEUIL. PROCESS 0F 4SNIPPING BANS. APPLICATION FILED MAY 28, 1917- RENEWED IAN. y15. |920.y

Patented Aug. 31, 1920.

2 SHEETS-SHEET l.

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CICIDU A Fay? E. J. VAUDREUIL..

PROCESS 0F SNIPPING BEANS.

APPLICATION FILED MAY 28, 1.911. nfNEwED JAN. l5. |920.

1 35 1 ,088, Patented Aug. 31, 1920.

2 SHEETS-SHEET 2.

- Fgga Invention PATENT OFFICE.

EDWARD a'. vaunnnun, or EAU. CLAIRE, wIscNsIN.

recense er sNIrrINe anims.V

tinuously upon bean pods so that the ends thereof will be automatically snipped or removed and thus prepare the pods for canning or other culinary purposes. The

process is carried out in the following manner. rlhe pods are iirst assorted into a number of lots, the pods of each lot being of substantially uniform size and the pods in one lot being of a diii'erent size from those in the other lots. The pods are then continuously fed to asupporting member formed with a multiplicity of apertures of a size adapted to receive the ends of the pods of the particular assortment to be snipped, so that said ends will protrude through the supporting member when they pass into the aperture. The pods are then continuously agitated and turned and dropped upon the supporting member and removed therefrom so that the ends of the pods 'will be presented to the supporting member many times and both ends will ultimately enter apertures and protrude through the supporting member. The supporting member with the protruding pods is then moved relatively to a shearing device in proximity thereto, and in this manner the ends of .the pods protruding 'through the aperture below'the supppfrting mber will be sheared or snipped o1 Different forms of apparatus may be employed 'for carrying out my process. Any form of mesh device or apertured supporting member may be employed and the agitating of the'pods may be eifected manually or by any suitable mechanism. The essential part of this step is that the pods shall'be lifted and turned and dropped, and that during the dropping they shall be acted upon so as to be caused to strike upon the apertured support in a substantially vertical position, thus insuring that the ends of the pods will be presented many times for entrance through apertures so that before the application mea may as, No. 351,557.

from those which are very small' to those which are fully grown. This'is uniform practice in canneries and the assorting may be done by well-known mechanism' or by hand. ln general, there will be from three to live of such sizes, which are ordinarily packed separately and are sold at different prices, the smaller beans bringing a higher price. The apertures of the support provided are adapted for use in a particular lot of beans. rlhat is, the smaller the beans the smaller the apertures in the supports for .such beans necessarily will have to be.

There must be, therefore, a separate support for each substantially similar lot of bean pods. ln practice have found that ordinarily not less than three different sizes of aperture and different positioning members are required to care for the various assortments of bean pods-which come to the cannery from the field.

' Various forms of support are practicable, but l have found that a rotatable cylinder which performs the double function of providing the apertured support and also of lifting and turning and dropping the bean pods is effective and economical for the purpose.

One form of apparatus for carrying out the steps of my process is shown and described herein and is claimed in my co-pending application Serial Number 154.104. filed. March 12, 1917, of which this application is a division. The drawings, illustrating this form of apparatus are as follows:

Figure l is a side elevation of an apparatus embodying my process. Fig. 2 is van enlarged end elevation of the same with some parts broken away. Fig. 3 is a plan View of a portion of the interior of the cylinder showing the pod-positioning net or web. Fig. 4 illustrates the manner of ad-4 justably holding the pod-positioning nets in the cylinder. Figs. 5, 6 and 7 are fragmentary plan views on an enlarged scale of Speccation of Letters I'atent. Patent-ed Aug, '31, 1920.

@riginal application led march 12, 19171', Serial No. 154,104. Divided and this 1917, Serial No. 171,405. Renewed January 15, 1920. Serial portions of cylinders and positioning nets' therein of diferent sizes for operation upon diferent assortments of bean pods.

A cylinder or drum 10 is supported by angle iron bands 11 and 12 upon front and rear rollers'l and 14C journaled in supporting stands 15 and 16. A ring gear 17 meshes With a drive pinion 18 on a driven shaft '19 journaled in supporting standard 16 by which the cylinder 10 is rotated at the desired speed. A funnel member 20 is connected by a chute 21 With` a hopper 22 by means of which the bean pods are fed at the desired rate, first into the hopper 20 and thence into the body of the cylinder 10. As shown in Fig. 1 the cylinder is .set at a suitable angle so that as the bean pods are rotated around and around With the cylinder they will travel toward the front or discharge end thereof, iinally discharging upon the conveyer belt 23.

The cylinder 10 is preferably made of sheet metal and has formed therein a multiplicity of apertures 24, there being as many of such apertures as can be formed of the desired size and leave the shell of the cylinder sufficiently strong to stand up and perform its shearing function. To add to the strength of the cylinder and for the .purpose of receiving the positioning nets or Webs, hereinafter described, a multiplicity of ribs 25 preferably of inverted ll-shape, as shown in Fig. 2, are secured longitudinally to the inside Walls of cylinder 10. rihe facing Walls of said ribs are parallel and secured to these Walls are frames 26 Which carry a wire mesh 27, as shown in detail in Fig. 3, and which are thereby held spaced from the inner Wall of the cylinder, as indicated in Fig. 2. It is to be noted that the Wire mesh 27 provides rectangular openings of much larger size than the openings 24 through theA cylinder. Also, thaty spaces 28 and 29 on each side of the mesh 27 and between it and the Walls of ribs 25 are left open-to permit bean pods which may get outside of the mesh to be freely discharged from the Walls of the ribs as the same are moved upwardly. It is to be noted also that 'the frames 26- preferably have one edge thereof, as indicated at 30, curved in the direction of'rotation of the cylinder so as to hold the bean pods from discharge until the same have been carried to or past the top of the cylinder, from which pointthey will tend to drop longitudinally and will strike the meshes 27, and in going throughthe same Will be positioned as indicated at 31 so that the ends thereof will pass into the apertures 24. The frames 26 "are iadjustably connected to the ribs 25 by bolts 32 passing through slots 33 in said frames and into the ribs.

The apertures in the shell of the cylinder 10 are preferably formed square. As ind-i-v cated in Fig. 5, the cylinder 10 has aper of the-pods.

resinas tures 34e of largest sine coperating with a mesh 35 of corresponding lar er size; While in Fig. (i the apertures in cy der 10 indicated at 36 are smaller in size than those at 3 and coperatie with a mesh 37 of smaller sine than mesh 35; and the apertures 38 in cylinder 10, shown in Fig. 7, cooperate with a mesh 39 of still smaller size. rlhese cylinders, having the several sizes of apertures and of mesh, are sucient to take care of the various assortments of bean pods resulting from any given picking.

Arms d and l1 are adjustably secured by bolt and slot connections l2 and t3 with the supports 15 and 16 and the respective ars of said arms carry shearing bars or 'ves di and 45 positioned in proximity to the outer periphery of the rotating cylinder 10, Where said lnuves will engage the protruding ends of bean pods and snip them on. l have shown two such knives, but do not desire to limit myself, as a greater or less number may be employed.

As shown in Fig. l, the supporting stands 15 and 16 are of unequal heights so that the axis ef the cylinder or drum isdepressed at a slight angle to the horizontal, which in conjunction with the rotation of the drum and liftingof the beans e'ect', the longitudinal travel of the pods through the machine.

As hereinbefore stated the first step of my process consists in asserting the beans, as they come from the vines, into a suitable number of lots each containing beans of substantially the same size, that is, beans which are of substantially the same thickness or have substantially the same cross sectional means for acting upon the pods while they are movedrori'as they are presented tothe supporting member to cause the engagement with the supporting member to be with the ends of the pods. The rotation of the cylin? ing cylinder, and the Wire mesh constitutes i derV in conjunction with the co-acting knife bar provides means for snpping the ends rlhe advantages of my process will be apparent. The pods after having been sorted into lots of proper size may be continuously fed through the cylinder support having a ertures and mesh work ofthe right size.

ach pod will be agitated and turned and dropped endwise many times in the course der to its discharge from the lower' end thereof. This, in combination with the acof its travel from its entrance into the cylinsufliciently far through an aperture to present the right part of said end to the snipping action of the bars or knives, but are small enough to hold thepods of any assortment from going farther than that. The provision of several agitating, turning and snipping means having aperturesand holding mesh of a proper size to operate upon the corresponding assortment of pods resulting from the lirst step of my process, insures that the pods Will not be improperly snipped or portions of the beans Wasted thereby.

l claimi y 1. The process of snipping bean pods which consists in operating upon several previously assorted lots each containing pods of substantially the same thickness, by presenting each lot of pods to a separate supporting member, each of said members having therein a multiplicity of .apertures of a size proportioned to the sizeof the pods presented thereto and of a different size for each member, acting upon the pods of each lot as they are resented to its member to cause the ends tlliereof to pass into the apertures of such member and'to have the part to be l snipped protruding through said apertures, and snipping said protruding parts.

2. The process of snipping bean pods which consists in operating upon several previously assorted lots each lot containing pods of substantially the same thickness, by acting upon each lot of pods to snip the ends of the same by a separate set of instrumentalities, each' of which sets of instrumentalities is'formed and proportioned in correspondence With the .thickness of pods of one lot to operate only upon'pods of Such lot.

3. The process of snipping bean .pods

which consists in operating upon severaly previously assorted lots each lot containing pods 0f substantially the same thickness, by presenting the pods of the several lots to a corresponding number of snipping devices respectively adapted to receive and hold individual bean pods of said several lots and lto snip the ends thereof While held, and causing the bean pods of each lot to be held and snipped by its snipping device by repeatedly presenting the pods of' each lot independently and causing said pods individually repeatedly to-move into engagement With the holding means of its snipping device. f f

4. The process of snipping bean pods which consists in operating upon several previously assorted lots each lot containing pods of substantially the same thickness, by presenting the pods of the several lots to a corresponding number of snipping devices respectively adapted to receive and hold bean pods of said several lots and to snip the ends thereof While held, and causing the bean pods of each lot to be held and snipped by its snipping device by repeatedly presenting the pods of each lot independently `and. causing said pods individually repeatpresenting the pods of the several lots to a corresponding number of snipping devices respectively adapted to receive and hold -bean pods of said several lots and to snip theends thereof While held, and causing the bean podsV of each lot to be held and snipped by its snippingdevice by repeatedly lifting and turning the pods of each lot independently and causing the pods of each lot individually repeatedly to move into engagement with the holding means of its snippin deviceafter it has been lifted and turne i and acting upon the pods While so moved to cause such engagement to b e with the ends of the pods.

In testimon whereof I aiiix my signature.

Y E WARD J. vAUDR 

